Was crap and got better. Enjoyed the medal races but W/L course was a bit of a disappointment, boats always look better if there's a good reach in the mix IMO. The 2012 coverage was better and it had triangle sausage (the ones I saw), OK the tri saus may be a bit tricky for the non sailing public to follow but it's a much better spectacle.Rio coverage 4/10London (weymouth) 7/10
Edit: Although the commentators did their best to drop the jargon there was still too much of it. It doesn't help to promote the sport.

Not wanting the truth to get in the way of a good moan, but there were no triangle sausage courses in the 2012 Games. Lots of the qualifying series were on trapezoids with one fleet doing outer loop and one inner loop, all medal races were w/l with a short reach to the finish if the wind direction needed this to get the line close to the nothe.

I have the memory of an old fart over 4 yrs. Still, you get my drift. Trapezoid triangle whatever. Windward leeward duller to watch......my moan still stands 😉

Maybe the Olympics should be downwind slaloms in 49ers, windsurfers and kiteboard, match racing with a final and 3rd place play off. Have a 2nd chance idea like the bikes do, too. Not the sport we actually do, but then, apart from in rush hour, how many cyclists follow a moped around?

It's not a spectator sport but more worryingly, attempts to make it so make the actual sailing worse.

But what coverage we had was, as Rupert says, crap. Because:

There was only coverage of the mickey-mouse sailing under Sugarloaf in no wind. Meantime, there was sensational sailing in big winds and waves, the only evidence of which is photos.

If you want great TV, what you actually need is wind, waves and sun. What a waste

The directing of the official TV feed was hyperactive, random and clearly by someone clueless about sailing

Personally, I care not a jot about board-air-rowing. But that was virtually all we got for the first few days. We'd have Finns, lasers, 470s visible tantalising in the background. Schedules would say Lasers and boreds (sic), but we'd only get the latter. Grr.

The graphics, oh the hopeless graphics. The AC in SanFran gave us tide flows. Other systems move the gain line as the wind shifts. These were fixed. They even sometimes showed wind arrows, but never perpendicular to the gain-lines! If the sailors tack way, way past the lay line- graphic, it ain't their error.

They clearly had telemetry data and would randomly show it, for random boats. On the plus side, it was something at least, even if mainly a tease. Conversely, World Sailing's live tracker refused to work at all for me. Most TVs are no longer 15inch and many watch in HD. So how about some picture in picture. Give us tables of race order shown PinP, changing with the telemetry data. Ideally, I want the race order, speed, CMG and wind speed for each boat - all live.

Commentary must be a nightmare when you have no control over the hyperactive, idiot directors feed, but sometimes less is more. Yes I can see Croatia has just tacked, or whatever. No need to tell me. The TV equivalent of reading the PowerPoint bullets is pointless; they need to add insight. Ian was pretty good at this, hampered by unreliable data. The team ought to have multi-screens with all that telemetry at their fingertips so they can tell us "look out for X who has pressure and a lift" even if the director is not showing it. A lot to learn still from F1 in this regard. But if there is nothing to say that we cannot see for ourselves, don't be afraid to zip it for a moment. Or talk about the subtleties. The guys on BTSport, covering the AC can teach a lesson or two, I'd say

Olympic TV coverage will always be a monopoly. But why can't they provide access to the multiple sources, it's all there in the directors box. Feed the drone view, on-the-water and an on-board or two for the Beeb et al to mix as they choose. How many people, from how many nations would be counting at a mark rounding, then curse as it cuts away before 'their' boat rounds. F1 regularly scrolls the race order. They could have at least done the same for mark-roundings

Beeb: it was on at the same time every day. So put it on the same channel. And Sky, let me record it as a series (same should apply for all sports)

That's a starter for 10 on why it was crap.

But I'd still prefer sailing was not in the Olympics. And I still think the medal-race concept is inequitous and daft.

Given that the commenters probably had the same picture feed to look at as us and had, over the course of two weeks, to talk for hours about the same subject I think they did a great job.

For me what makes it dull are just the large courses. It makes it hard for the TV crew to cover, hard for the producer to then give us images of what's happening and then hard for the commentators to explain the racing.

Constrain the fleet into basically the same piece of water and you have a lot more boat on boat interaction and the fleet in one space so the cameras can keep an eye on everything. And because they are close its much easier to see who is in front and thus easier for the commentators to explain the racing.

If you look at that what the 18ft skiffs can turn out with one camera, a fast boat and a couple of commentators that know there stuff, when the fleet is constrained in Sidney harbour and local knowledge that dictates the way the fleet generally go it shows it can be done.

Maybe the Olympics should be downwind slaloms in 49ers, windsurfers and kiteboard, match racing with a final and 3rd place play off. Have a 2nd chance idea like the bikes do, too. Not the sport we actually do, but then, apart from in rush hour, how many cyclists follow a moped around?

Or may be, as a sport, we should just tell the IOC that we will not hyper-dumb down ours, the ultimate sport for the sake of the great God TV.

Maybe one person's dumbing down is another person's making it more accessible. But maybe kite surfing and true match racing (as opposed to what they tried for a while) in fast cats, as this seems trendy, would be better understood.

Maybe the Olympics should be downwind slaloms in 49ers, windsurfers and kiteboard, match racing with a final and 3rd place play off. Have a 2nd chance idea like the bikes do, too. Not the sport we actually do, but then, apart from in rush hour, how many cyclists follow a moped around?

Sorry Rupert there is one big difference. What you are putting forward for sailing has no history in our sport, but racing cyclists have been following mopeds/motorbikes both on the track and on the road for about 100 years.

It's not a spectator sport but more worryingly, attempts to make it so make the actual sailing worse.

But what coverage we had was, as Rupert says, crap. Because:

There was only coverage of the mickey-mouse sailing under Sugarloaf in no wind. Meantime, there was sensational sailing in big winds and waves, the only evidence of which is photos.

If you want great TV, what you actually need is wind, waves and sun. What a waste

The directing of the official TV feed was hyperactive, random and clearly by someone clueless about sailing

Personally, I care not a jot about board-air-rowing. But that was virtually all we got for the first few days. We'd have Finns, lasers, 470s visible tantalising in the background. Schedules would say Lasers and boreds (sic), but we'd only get the latter. Grr.

The graphics, oh the hopeless graphics. The AC in SanFran gave us tide flows. Other systems move the gain line as the wind shifts. These were fixed. They even sometimes showed wind arrows, but never perpendicular to the gain-lines! If the sailors tack way, way past the lay line- graphic, it ain't their error.

They clearly had telemetry data and would randomly show it, for random boats. On the plus side, it was something at least, even if mainly a tease. Conversely, World Sailing's live tracker refused to work at all for me. Most TVs are no longer 15inch and many watch in HD. So how about some picture in picture. Give us tables of race order shown PinP, changing with the telemetry data. Ideally, I want the race order, speed, CMG and wind speed for each boat - all live.

Commentary must be a nightmare when you have no control over the hyperactive, idiot directors feed, but sometimes less is more. Yes I can see Croatia has just tacked, or whatever. No need to tell me. The TV equivalent of reading the PowerPoint bullets is pointless; they need to add insight. Ian was pretty good at this, hampered by unreliable data. The team ought to have multi-screens with all that telemetry at their fingertips so they can tell us "look out for X who has pressure and a lift" even if the director is not showing it. A lot to learn still from F1 in this regard. But if there is nothing to say that we cannot see for ourselves, don't be afraid to zip it for a moment. Or talk about the subtleties. The guys on BTSport, covering the AC can teach a lesson or two, I'd say

Olympic TV coverage will always be a monopoly. But why can't they provide access to the multiple sources, it's all there in the directors box. Feed the drone view, on-the-water and an on-board or two for the Beeb et al to mix as they choose. How many people, from how many nations would be counting at a mark rounding, then curse as it cuts away before 'their' boat rounds. F1 regularly scrolls the race order. They could have at least done the same for mark-roundings

Beeb: it was on at the same time every day. So put it on the same channel. And Sky, let me record it as a series (same should apply for all sports)

That's a starter for 10 on why it was crap.

But I'd still prefer sailing was not in the Olympics. And I still think the medal-race concept is inequitous and daft.

Hard to ever see sailing as a spectator sport and for whatever reason the BBC certainly don't see to want to buy in to the sailors as stars; so little coverage on main channel- I think they were showing badminton doubles match of a few hours earlier when 470 women were racing and certainly the post race celebrations should have been captured live.

It was poor so little footage of offshore sailing. I also think move to faster boats, totally remote from our normal sailing hasn't help as more about driving fast than tactical duels and gets boring as does AC for me.

The medal race is hit and miss - the 49X and 470 women races were good although as others say hard to know what was going on apart from at marks as graphics were so inaccurate. On downside a number of classes were won before medal race so Hannah sailing a safe race and coming mid-fleet doesn't make for good TV but her just sailing up to the beach afterwards was great and brought back memories of one's youth.

I thought commentary was OK but as they were looking at same footage as us they might as well have been in UK. Maybe should have used more screens and certainly it was very annoying when they would say with some uncertainty we were doing so and so in another class when we already knew that by looking at official mark rounding data - surely the commentators should have had multiple windows open with all race data coming in - I did.

As for future we have to accept sailing isn't a major spectator sport but I don't like push to everything has to be faster and also alienates poorer countries which is why having the two Lasers was a good move. I would still prefer to have male/female match racing over short courses with proper graphics - this type of racing would better represent what is attractive elsewhere, the individual combat within a confined area.

Its odd though, I remember one year I had to sit out a race at a Nationals at New Quay in Wales, where the racing can be set close in, just off the harbour breakwater. I wandered out to the end of the breakwater to watch the racing, I was, I fear, overhearing some conversation, and to my amazement members of the general public were not only looking at the racing but actually following it.

A key thing, I think, was that the class in question had brightly coloured distinctive boats that were easily recognised at a distance.

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